Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	faith_n	reason_n	reveal_v	2,166	5	8.9320	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A72329	Gods love to mankind manifested, by dis-prooving his absolute decree for their damnation.	Hoard, Samuel, 1599-1658.	1633 (1633)	STC 13534.5; ESTC S104132	103,658	118

sayth he among the Canonists but (h) Ibi maxime verū est ubi rex justus est nihil vult nisi justum Quanto magis in regno Dei c. this is true where the King is just and willeth nothing but what is just In which words he plainly maketh the iustice of the King antecedent to that will of his which must be a law Many more speeches he useth there to the same purpose Gods will therefore is not a rule of Iustice to himself To whom then To us For by it we are 1 to square all our thoughts words and deeds 2 to examine them when they are spoken and done Primum in aliquo genere est regula posteriorum supremum inferiorum 2 I reply that these absolute decrees of mens inevitable salvation and damnation are no parts of Gods revealed will The Scriptures teach us no such matter And therefore to say they are is but a meere begging of the question It hath alwayes beene ordinary with false Teachers to make Gods word a Father to their false opinions that they may stand the faster and winne the greater credit The Papists ground their transubstantiation and the Lutherans their consubstantiation and ubiquity upon the Scripture Hoc est corpus meum This is my body Math. 26. And the defenders of absolute Reprobation do so too they make their cause to be Gods and entitle his word to it because they see it is the surest way to defend it being herein like to some contentious people who being in law and having a bad cause which they are like to lose they entitle the King to it that they may the better uphold it 3 Absolute Reprobation can be no part of Gods revealed will The reason is because it is odious to right reason and begetteth absurdities For Nulla veritas parit absurda no truth begetteth absurdities Divers truths are revealed in Scripture which are above but not contrary to right reason whether they be matters of faith or life faith and reason nature and scripture are both Gods excellent gifts and therefore though there may be a disproportion yet there can be no repugnancy between them The worship which God requireth is cultus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a reasonable service Rom. 12.2 and the word of God is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 milke reasonable and without guile 1 Pet. 2.2 These things therefore being layd together it will appeare to be but a meere shift and evasion when absolute Reprobation is proved to be unjust and therefore unworthy of God to say Gods will is the rule of Iustice this is part of Gods revealed will and therefore most just whatsoever reason may cavill and say to the contrary 3 Their third answer is that God is not bound to restore men power to beleeve because they once had it and have lost it through their own fault as a master is not bound to renew his servants stocke if he have wasted it by bad husbandry This answer doth not satisfie me For I grant that God is simply and absolutely bound to no man because he is agent liherrimum a most free dispenser of his owne favours where and what and to whom he will and no man is aforehand with God Quis prior illi dedit ut retribuatur Who hath given unto him and it shall be recompensed again Rom. 11.35 But yet he is conditionally bound for he hath determined and tyed himselfe 3 wayes especially 1 Decernendo by decreeing The Almighty is eternally subject to his own ordinances or els he should be mutable And therefore what gifts soever he hath decreed to men he is bound to give them by vertue of his own decree 2 Promittendo by promising We use to say promise is debt it is Iustice to performe what it was free to promise and whosoever he be that promiseth and payeth not is guilty of a trespasse witnesse Ananias and Sapphira and unworthy of the kingdome of heaven Psal 15.4 If therefore God hath made a promise of any gift or grace to men his promise bindeth him to performance Nam semell emissum volat irrevocabile verbum 3 Legem ferendo by giving men a law to keep which without supernaturall grace they can no more keepe then they can eate a rock By such a law the supreme Lawgiver bindeth himself to his people to give them such power as may enable them to keep that law or else he becommeth as the evill servant in the parable stiled him a hard master reaping where he sowed not and the very true and proper cause of the transgression of that law We shall finde God alwayes giving strength when he giveth a command When he commandeth the creatures to increase and multiply he gave them a multiplying vertue when CHRIST bade the lame man arise take up his bed and walk he put into his limbs an ability of walking when Adam had a spirituall law given him to obey which without spirituall strength he could not God gave him strength answerable to the law as Divines agree consenting to that noted speech of St. Austin that Adam had posse non cadere though he never had non posse cadere a power and possibility though no necessity of continuing in obedience That I may bring this home to my purpose I say that God is bound to restore unto men power to beleeve supposing these things that follow 1 That he hath vouchsafed to enter into a new Covenant of peace with men when he needed not 2 That in that Covenant he requireth obedience at mens hands even at theirs that perish 3 That he promiseth eternall life to every man if he obey and keepe the Covenant 4 That he punisheth the disobedient with everlasting death These particulars supposed the most free God who is absolutely bound to none is engaged to give ability of beleeving unto men nor can he justly without this gift punish the disobedient any more then a Magistrate having put out a mans eyes for an offence can command this man with justice to reade a book and because he readeth not put him to death or then a Master that I may returne the Simile in the answer when he hath taken away from his servant the stocke which he hath misimployed can afterward exact of him a just imployment of the same stocke and punish him because he imployeth it not I conclude therefore that the absolute and inevitable reprobation of such men as are called to beleeve in CHRIST and punished if they beleeve not is utterly repugnant to the Iustice of God and therefore can be no part of his word 4 Opposite to Gods Truth FOurthly it oppugneth the truth and sincerity of God God is a God of truth Deut. 32.4 Truth it self Ioh. 14.6 so called because he is the fountaine of truth and the perfection of truth without the least mixture of falshood The strength of Jsraell cannot lye Rom. 3.4 1 Sam. 15.29 Let God be true and every man a lyar sayth the Apostle

(h) Vives l. 4 page 4●9 Qui veritate suâ sidit nihil reformidat examen ingenii imo advocat quantum potest exacuit who is confident of the goodnesse of his Faith feareth no examination but rather as much as may be soliciteth and provoketh his Adversary to the Combat Truth whether it be in men or doctrines is best when it is uncovered it covets no corners though error doe but is willing to abide the tryall (i) Psal 139.23.24 Search me O Lord and know my heart try me and know my thoughts and see if there be any way of wickednesse in me saith the Prophet David knowing his heart to be without guile And our Saviour telleth us (k) Ioh. 3.20 21. that every one that doth evill hateth the light and commeth not to it lest his deeds should be reproved but he that doth truth commeth to the light that his deeds may be made manifest that they are wrought in God As St. Paul sayth of an Heretique Titus 3.11 he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Selfe-condemned so we may say of Heresie and untruth it condemneth it selfe and by nothing more than by refusing the touchstone He is to be thought an empty Scholler who is loth to be apposed and his gold to bee light and counterfeit who will not have it toucht and weighed and those opinions to be but errors which would so willingly walke in a mist and dwell in silence when it concerneth the peace of the Church so much to have them examined 3. Reason Infamy 3 The Jnfamy of it It is an opinion especially as it is defended the upper way odious to the Papists opening their foule mouthes against our Church and Religion abhorred mainteyned eyther way by all the Lutherans who for this very Tenet call us damned Calvinists thinke us unworthy to be above ground and in their writings protest that they will rather unite themselves to the Papists then to us And it is also distastfull to all the Greeke Churches which are very many Molin in his Anatomie speaking of the Supralapsarian Doctrine sayth (l) Molin Anat. Arm. c. 12. de Praed If it should be so that God hath reprobated men without the consideration of sinne or hath ordayned them to sinne yet it is the part of a wise man to conceale these things or not to know them rather then to utter them (m) Quia enunciata injiciunt scrupulos ausam praebēt adversatiis infamandi veram Religionem Because when they are taught and defended they fill mens heads with scruples and give occasion to the Adversaries of defaming the true Religion The same may as truly be sayd of the Sublapsarian way For as I have sayd they are in substance all one And Sir Edwyn Sandys is of the same minde too For in his most excellent Booke called a Survey of the State of Religion in the Westerne parts of the World Speaking of the deadly division betweene the Lutherans and Calvinists in Germany Sir Edwin Sandys pag. 172. he hath these words That though the Palsgrave and Landsgrave have with great judgment and wisdome to asslake those flames imposed silence in that part to the Ministers of their party hoping the charity and discretion of the other party would have done the like yet it falles out otherwise For both the Lutheran Preachers rayle as bitterly against them in their pulpits as ever and their Princes and people have them in as great detestation not forbearing to professe openly that they will returne to the Papacie rather then ever admit that Sacramentary and predestinary Pestilence For these two points are the ground of the quarrell and the latter more scandalous at this day then the former And in the same book pag. 194. and 198. speaking of men whom he commendeth for singular learning and piety whose iudgment he so sets down as that he declareth it to be his own he sayth that they think it were no blemish for the reformed Doctors to revise their doctrines and to abate the rigour of speculative opinions for so he is pleased to call them especially touching the eternall decrees of God wherein some of their chief authors have run into such an extreame to all Romish doctrine as to have exceedingly scandalized all other Churches withall yea and many of their own to rest very ill satisfied At the closing up of the conference at Mompelgart Coll. Momp pa. 566.567 Ofiand Hist Eccles pa. 1040. Cent. 16. when Frederick Barle of Wortenberg exhorted his Divines to acknowledge Beza and his company for brethren and to declare it by giving them their hand they utterly refused saying they would pray to God to open their eyes and would doe them any office of humanity and charity but they would not give them the right hand of brotherhood because they were proved to be guilty errorum teterrimorum of most pestilent errors among which they reckon'd for one Hemingius left his own side and joyned with us in the poynt of the Sacrament but he would come no nearer mainteyning alwayes a distance in this And as for the Grecians pag. 237. we learne also by Sir Edwin Sandys his relation that they doe mightily d●ssent from that doctrine touching the eternall counsels of God which Calvin as some conceive first fully revealed or rather introduced into the Christian world and since some of his friends and followers have seconded as thinking it very injurious to the goodnesse of God and directly and immediately opposit to his very nature Jn regard of which one of their Bishops hath written a Booke against it which hath been sent to Geneva and there received It is a morsell which the greatest part of Christian Churches cannot swallow and therefore I think it should not very easily without suspicion downe with us And to say one thing more by this infamy of it among Christians pag. 223. 224. it is very probable that among the too many scandals given to the Iewes by Christians among whom they dwell this doctrine is not one of the least rubs in the way of their conversion For they think it a bad opinion sayes the same iudicious and learned Gentleman Which some of great name have seemed to hold that God in his everlasting and absolute pleasure should affect the extreame miserie of any of his Creatures for the shewing of his justice and severity in tormenting them or that the calamity casting away and damnation of some should absolutely and necessarily redound more to his glory than the felicity of them all considering that his nature is meere goodnesse and happinesse and hath no affinity with rigour or misery This is my third reason Reason 4. Affinity to Fate The fourth It 's affinity with the olde exploded errors of the Stoicks and Manichees The opinion of the Stoickes was that all actions and events were unavoydable determined either by the revolutions of the Heavens and the qualities of such starres as raigned at mens births